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When last year’s labour dispute between Ontario and its teachers shut down extracurricular activities in schools, high school newspaper editor Jolson Lim was determined to keep his presses running.

The then-executive editor of The Riverdale Spectator, the award-winning school newspaper of Toronto’s Riverdale Collegiate, organized and led a team of students who met clandestinely to ensure the paper got published and students got their news.

Lim, now studying journalism at Carleton University, was honoured last month at the Toronto Star’s 18th annual High School Newspaper Awards for his “outstanding journalistic potential and strength of character.” He won the annual Brad Henderson Award, given in the name of the former Star senior manager who started the awards in 1995 and died in 2008.

“Like many good journalists faced with a roadblock he refused to be stymied by the shutdown of the student paper,” teacher Andre Simoneau, the founder and adviser to the student paper, who has himself long been passionate about journalism, said in nominating Lim for this award for his work during his last year of high school.

As editor, Lim organized writers and photographers, assigned stories, edited articles and designed and laid out pages. He also oversaw the business side of publishing — “hounding” the school’s principal for funding, selling ads, arranging printing and delivery of two issues of The Spectator.

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“While his passion for writing was never in question, I was more than impressed by his fortitude and resolve in his quest to continue publishing,” said Simoneau, who was quietly supportive of Lim’s “drive and desire” in the face of the shut down of student extracurricular activities.

“He was relentless in his pursuit to continue publishing the school paper.”

The Toronto Star’s High School Newspaper Awards initiative is an important investment in journalism’s future, celebrating the best high school journalists in the province. In a time when the future of journalism is debated endlessly at global conferences, it is comforting to know that journalism still matters to a good many high school students — our journalists and readers of the future.

Some 800 entries are received each year in 22 categories including reporting, feature writing, opinion writing, photography, best newspaper and best electronic newspaper. Winners are honoured at a lunch held at the Star’s Vaughan Press Centre.

For those of us long-time journalists who serve as judges of the student work, this is always an inspiring event, a vivid reminder of the idealism and passion for journalism that sparked our own careers and eternally fuels the best journalism. Indeed, a number of us fell in love with journalism while working for our high school papers.

“The high school newspaper awards are a terrific reminder of where we all came from and what we aspired to be,” said Alison Uncles, the Star’s associate editor who hosted this year’s awards. “Sometimes you can lose that in the day-to-day grind.

“Those crazily talented, hard-working kids — they want to work in a newsroom like this. It was so good to be reminded that we are lucky to be here, and lucky also to have them coming up fast on our heels. I was impressed, amazed and inspired by them.”

Indeed, Uncles was so inspired by Lim’s determination to continue publishing his school’s news that she arranged for him to visit Canada’s largest newsroom this week. Lim was thrilled with the opportunity to meet with several of the Star journalists he has long admired and sit in on news meetings where editors debate the daily news file.

Lim, 18, a smart, serious young man, told me the Star’s city hall bureau chief, Daniel Dale, and former Star reporter Robyn Doolittle are “my idols.” He was most excited to meet Dale and talk with him not only about city politics but also rap and hip-hop. Clearly, meeting his idol lived up to Lim’s expectations.

Lim said he dreams of being a city hall reporter one day. “I’ve always been interested in politics but I got very interested in city hall when Rob Ford got elected and I have followed all the Star’s reporting very closely.”

Lim said that given the uncertainty of the news business, his parents had some concerns about his decision to pursue a career in journalism. The young journalist had a ready answer for that.

“I told them if I am good I will find a job,” he said, making clear his determination to work hard to take his place among the best. “I don’t think journalism is ever going to die.

“Journalism is alive and will be necessary for as long as we have a democracy.”

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